S-guard Bowie- Bronze and textured redwood burl

[J. Doyle]

Here's a nice medium sized bowie I just finished today. All comments, critique, discussion and/or opinions welcome. I particularly like the 'ghost' hamon above the main transition line. Also, how the figure and color changes in the redwood are still visible through the texturing.

Specs:
Hand forged from 1075 steel, clay quenched and etched
13" overall, 8" blade, .225" thick at the ricasso
Radical distal taper, clip is just shy of sharp
Bronze guard and spacer
Stabilized Redwood burl, sculpted, carved and textured
Checkered stainless steel finial nut

[Jon Kelly]

That is very spectacular Mr. Doyle. I am not so familiar with bronze, does it patina over time if left uncoated or infrequently polished? The only suggestion I could possibly make would be to perhaps fabricate a tang nut out of bronze in order to pull it all together.

[J. Doyle]

Thanks Jon.

Yeah, bronze takes a nice penny brown patina over time. None of that green crap you get with brass though.

The problem with the bronze finial nut is that I can't find any bronze that matches. I've got bronze round stock but it's a drastically different color than the flat stock I have for guards. I have at least two kinds of bronze round and neither one matches the flat.

I used to use it anyway and people complained that it didn't match. My personal rule is, if something like that doesn't match, then it's better to do with a contrasting material altogether.

[ericbrinkerhoff]

Elegant!!

[J. Doyle]

Due to the majority of the the feedback I've gotten on this, I've gone back and made a new bronze finial to match the fittings. I ended up machining one out of a block of the same material as the spacer. I do think it looks better. I guess I could have done that right from the get go, but it was easier to make a finial out of already round stock vs flat sheet. But the people have spoken and therefore........new finial.

[Naboyle]

Very beautiful John! One question thou, how do you get your texturing to look like that? I've tried it with a small burr in my dremel on some scrap wood but it always ends up looking like I just took a dremel with a burr and made a mess on a scrap piece of wood!!!

[Dana Hackney]

Beautiful work, John!

It's been waaaaay too long since my last visit here. We are about a month out of having the house done! The shop is almost ready to move into, as well. Gosh, what a loooooooong process for a small house!

Cheers to all here! Hope to be back here with comments and questions in about a month.

Take care,
Dana

[jim poling]

Very Nice John!

[J. Doyle]

Thanks again guys.

[Ed Caffrey]

Getting in late on this one....Cindy and I just got home from a cross country trip to KY. 4,000 miles in 9 days (yes, my butt is still sore)

NICE work John! Love the overall "flow". When I read that you carved/textured redwood burl.....all I could think was "bet John was saying a few choice words". In my experience redwood burl is one of the more difficult woods to carve/texture......but you did a super job.

[J. Doyle]

Thanks for the kind words Ed. I really appreciate it.

And..............you hit the nail right on the head with the redwood. I learned a couple things on this knife that I won't do again and texturing redwood is absolutely one of them.

Where was your input BEFORE I started the texturing?

I found it to be very inconsistent with super soft areas marbled in with much harder areas, making it quite tedious to get an even consistent depth to the texture.

I can normally texture blackwood in about 45 minutes per side maybe. This probably took me at least 2 hours per side. Not cool.

I'm happy with how it came out but it will certainly be a 'one-of-a-kind' handle from me.

Glad you made it home safe and sound by the way. I don't know about those long car rides anymore. Seems about 5 hours is my max these days.

[jim poling]

Very nice John, looks great!